University of Jordan

School of Engineering
Civil Engineering Department
Professor Bashar Tarawneh, P.E

0921703
Continuum Mechanics
Deformation and Strain
Introduction
Deformation:
• Modifications of the shape or size of an object due to applied forces or a
change in temperature.
• Transformation of a body from a reference configuration to a current
configuration.
• Focus on the relative movement of a given particle w.r.t. the particles in
its neighbourhood (at differential level).
• It includes changes of size and shape.

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Deformation Gradient Tensor

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Continuous Medium in Movement

Deformation is the relative

position of a particle.

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 Fundamental Equation of Deformation

Spatial
position

Talking : 2nd order tensor

Index

Dot product

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Material Deformation Gradient Tensor

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Inverse (spatial) Deformation Gradient
Tensor

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Properties of the Deformation Gradients

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 Example
• Compute the deformation gradient and inverse deformation gradient
tensors for a motion equation with Cartesian components given by,

Using the results obtained, check that:

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 x
Example Solution y
z

Taking the transpose 2nd gradient to get the inverse

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Displacements

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Displacements

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 Displacement Gradient Tensor
Material
form

Spatial
form

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Strain Tensors

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Strain Tensors
• Strain is defined as the relative change in the position of points within a
body that has undergone deformation. The classic example in two
dimensions is of the square which has been deformed to a parallelepiped.

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Strain Tensors
• F characterizes changes of relative placements during motion but is not
a suitable measure of deformation for engineering purposes:
 It is not null when no changes of distances and angles take place,
e.g., in rigid-body motions.

• Strain is a normalized measure of deformation which characterizes the

changes of distances and angles between particles.
 It reduces to zero when there is no change of distances and angles
between particles.

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Distance in a scalar.
The length of the vector is referred to as the vector norm or the vector's magnitude

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In Matrix Form

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Green-Lagrange Strain Tensor
Strain for large deformation

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Euler-Almansi Strain Tensor

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Particularities of the Strain Tensors

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